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The Oracle of Omaha

There is a large and contentious ongoing debate about alternative energy, wind power being one of those alternatives. Much has been written about wind power being unpredictable and fickle,well, like the wind. This is certainly true.

I have considered economics to be the bigger issue with regard to the alternatives. Are they really cost effective? After all, in this world, resources (time, money, and raw materials, etc.) really are scarce. If you eat all your seed corn over the winter, when it comes time to plant in the spring, there is nothing to plant and then you are going to starve.

If wind mills are built instead of reliable nuclear power plants, we will have less energy and less money to do other things.

Well, none other than Warren Buffet has weighed in on the economics of windmills. Here is what he says,

“I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

That pretty much puts the issue to bed for me. It’s not that I admire Mr. Buffet all that much, but I acknowledge that from an investing and financial perspective, he certainly knows what he is talking about. Windmills do NOT make sense without the tax credit.

Anti-nuclear forces have worked for decades to increase the costs of nuclear power providers, while working to get very generous subsidies for alternatives. Then they say that nuclear can’t compete with alternatives. Please!

End the subsidies to windmills, or give the same subsidies to all energy sources. After all, don’t we pretend to believe in equal protection under the law?